JOE wonders whether Eamonn McEneaney will consider an unlikely solution to Monaghan’s scoring woes and ponders the options available to Dublin at midfield.
By Ciaran Brennan
Will Eamonn McEneaney ask Tommy Bowe to do a Kevin Moran on the summer holiers?
Back in the day, Kevin was well known for turning Manchester United manager Dave Sexton’s locks even whiter when he’d return home to Dublin in the off season and join his mates in the light blue shirts on the GAA pitches of Leinster.
Sexton wasn’t best pleased when the bould Kev would turn up for pre-season in various states of disrepair having shipped some serious treatment during his extracurricular activities.
McEneaney, seeing his Monaghan charges shooting blanks in the league to date, must be glancing enviously at the Ireland rugby team’s version of ‘Golden balls’ and thinking “here’s a guy who’s played minor for us and boy does he know how to finish.” (Ask any of the girls)
Well Eamonn, Tommy’s only got a few games left for the Ospreys and then it’s a long hot summer to the World Cup. He’s already launched the footwear range so maybe he’d be only too glad to put the boot in and give your guys a dig out. Why don’t you pop the question?
Wonder what Declan Kidney or Sean Holley at the Ospreys would think though?
Goal-den boy
Dublin had their own goal-den boy in Croke Park over the weekend when full forward Diarmuid Connolly helped himself to a hat-trick of goals and a couple of impressive points against Mayo.
Neither team were too concerned with their defensive responsibilities as the Dubs notched four goals early in the first half and Mayo hit three of their own before the game was up. But the room afforded to the forwards for most of the goals was frightening.
Dublin’s midfield two, Barry Cahill and Denis Bastick, are playing some of the best football we’ve seen from them…..but not as midfielders!
Sexton wasn’t best pleased when the bould Kev would turn up for pre-season in various states of disrepair having shipped some serious treatment during his extracurricular activities.
At inter-county level Cahill has been doing what he does best, driving forward from the half back line and setting up scores for others or taking one or two himself. But in the middle of the field? Sorry, no.
Bastick is an abrasive, teak tough, half back, pure and simple. He’ll do, and has been doing, a defensive midfield job for you, but against any decent partnership out there, both he and Cahill will struggle to gain any possession.
Dublin manager Pat Gilroy has a number of options for this critical area; Michael Dara McAuley, Ross McConnell and Bryan Cullen for starters, and has Diarmuid Connolly thrown his name into the hat?
With his physique, a great pair of hands and springs in his toes, he might just do the trick.
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